Camellia sinensis

A while back my mother in law asked me if I would like some tea. I said “sure.” I like tea but after taking a sip of it I realized it was like no tea I had ever tried. It was a bit minty but other than that it was bad. I leaned over and asked my wife what kind of tea it was. “oh, just normal tea” yea right.
It turns out that her family doesn’t usually drink tea with the leaves of Camellia sinensis in their tea. They drink “herbal tea.” Herbal tea is not really tea. It is water that had some weeds boiled in it. It has no tea flavor what so ever. It is amazingly popular here. I don’t understand it. If you want “TEA” here in Switzerland you have to ask for “black tea” or “green tea.” The fifty or so other varieties of tea in the grocery store are all “herbal tea” Yuck.

Post scriptum, Do you think “minty” is a word. MS office spellchecker doesn’t think so. I disagree.